Electoral Assistance and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding - What Lessons Have Been Learned?

Abstract

The past decade was witness to an unprecedented rise in the number and percentage of electoral democracies in the world. The number of countries in which elections are competitive and meet minimum standards of freedom and fairness reached a new high-water mark in 2001, with 122 (or 63 percent) of the world’s 192 countries qualifying as ‘electoral democracies’ (Freedom House, 2001). This marks a threefold increase from the situation applying in 1989, at the end of the Cold War. Indeed, more governments today have been chosen via free and fair elections than at any time in history.